“We believe such a study will confirm that there are serious flaws and systemic disparities
within any application of the death penalty,” the Catholic Conference of Ohio said in a statement
Friday, a day after O’Connor made her announcement.

In February, the bishops urged state leaders to abolish the death penalty. That came on the
heels of anti-death-penalty comments by Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, a Republican who
helped write the state’s original death-penalty law, and Terry Collins, a former state prisons
director who witnessed 33 executions.

O’Connor, a Republican and former prosecutor, is forming the task force in conjunction with the
state bar.